The present invention relates to mounting a weapon to a vehicle via a slidable swing arm assembly.
It is often desirable to mount a weapon, such as a machine gun, to a vehicle in such a fashion as to allow the weapon to be aimed and/or fired in many directions. For example, when a machine gun is mounted to a humvee, it is advantageous if the machine gun can be readily repositioned to fire in forward, sideways, and rearward directions, while maintaining control over the machine gun and without remounting the machine gun. In the prior art, it is common for the machine gun to be mounted using a single fixed point gun mount that allows for the machine gun to be rotated about a single axis. However, moving the machine gun to point in the various desired directions frequently requires that the machine gun be swung past an obstruction, such as a windshield corner post or the like. In addition, it is frequently advantageous to allow the gun mounting to be adjustable so as to accommodate different size individuals and/or personal preferences. Thus, providing a fixed, single position gun mount is less than ideal. Accordingly, there remains a need for additional approaches to mounting a weapon on a vehicle in a moveable fashion.